I Am Suspect

For all who decry the modern state.

We sell ourselves as subversive, incisive, even revolutionary, the new intelligentsia. And there is yet a grain of truth.

When we take to the blog interface, we know we have something to argue, something to condemn, some flag to hoist in triumph. We pound and eviscerate the dreadful, outrageous falsehoods of contemporary culture, raging to get to a point. We clash and bang and make a scene. But what is left after all of our brilliant syllogisms have been arrayed upon the Thyestean table for us and our friends to feast upon.

We are more of the judge and less of the critic, more of the hangman than the priest.

We all agree it is easier to find a problem than to solve it. We even agree to solving it. We come to council, say "Aye, this can't go on", and go our ways to fill the world with justice. But sensationalism and vituperation usually take its place.

Marc Barnes writes of an ubiquitous internet humor that compromises the agency of our statements: "The Internet-writer gathers page-views by writing in the ironic, depersonalized spirit of anonymity that characterizes the online aesthetic, as if his work was simply burped up from the bowels of the Internet itself, bearing no relation to a subjective personality." This humor is harmful in many ways, one being that, while the outside truth or "fact" to which we refer may be valid, its manner of presentation is usually flippant, caustic, provocative, rude -- funny only to those who agree with us. We say, "Oh my gosh, look how stupid this is", and go about our day as if everyone has now reached a consensus from our ability to strip someone naked and leave them there in shame. Moreover, we assume that we offer up an absolute, that for a challenge to arise would be ignorant and insulting -- "What do you MEAN you don't agree? Are you stupid?"

While such antics may be cloaked in the trappings of the most witty and popular social commentary, and while the presentation may involve excellent turns of phrase, incomparably precise diction, infallible logic, the result remains the same: a great and terrible fallacy has only been disproved (occasionally, one adds a final line to the effect of "don't be like this").

But what are these social ills? What is the object of our fast-flying fingers over cacophonous plastic keys a million miles away from the source of our righteous glee? Do we lurch in our seats, sighing, wishing we could be present to make an end of such evil, to see it resolved? Is it not caused by humanity? Are we not responsible?

Are we gods that walk with heedless adamant heels through the stinking crowds of sniveling mortals? We are as bad as that, and not so smart and edgy as we believe. Intelligence lies in winning the opponent to love and truth. The purpose of argument is its opposite.

But the parts we often play fall short of beneficent:

• Toward our opponents -- the surgeon who removes a leg to cure an abscess. 
• Toward our friends -- the parent who so desperately desires the love of her child that she gives him cake when he requires meat.

Our unfortunate instinct drives us to crave shock and awe for savoring, horror for indulgence, absurdity for mocking, and indignation for pleasure in pride. As the mitigators of instinct, it is nothing short of shameful for us to inspire these feelings in our readers for the sake of a few more page-views. This is a sort of prostitution, where we forsake the dignity of our subjects for fickle fame or an extra buck. God knows the various exigencies that may drive one into desperation, but if we are to be genuine lovers of mankind, our word must mirror reality. And reality is not so near as we pointedly surmise in verbose denigrations of our opposition.

The reality of love is a far more difficult endeavor and a far deeper intellectual matter. To leave the flock for the lost one is to place oneself open to attack, critique by one's friends, humiliation and floundering, shame, depression, and the low esteem of all. You may find that you are wrong.

But the jewel of it is a heart won by trial -- and not "won" to our cause, but to a greater.

When we are challenged aggressively with stimulating fervor from another social force, do we not wish to respond in kind, to challenge in return with hard and fast impenetrable rebuttal? And what is gained? One may exercise and solidify his own suppositions, but have either traded any wisdom. Do we not dash ourselves to pieces against a wall?

Moreover, when we do engage debate on Facebook or in infamous comment sections, we often retreat to the blogosphere to save our pride. We present the refined oration to our friends for their praise. In doing so, we discriminate. We say that "only your opinion, your esteem is valuable to me, but as for you others, go back to the shadow". We, cowards, enhance our reputation in the dusty archives of presupposed assent, and Truth gets bored with us, until it decides to leave our intolerable company.

Subtlety, then, and not a subtlety of cleverness, an underhandedness, but a subtlety in truth that becomes an ancillary virtue to love of one's enemies -- this is to be sought. I think of no better names than Mother Theresa (who would deny her?), Ghandi even -- success lies in truth, but truth is integral to the approach, not distinct from it. Words that attempt to express some eternal verity in incendiary or even mildly hurtful language can not.

The truth is absent from self-righteous declamation, from rabble-rousing, from flag-waving. And it is not the reserved quest of poetry to seek beauty. Beauty is for the world. If what we say is beautiful, and how we say it, then who can forget us? Against true beauty there is no defense, for it, too, is love.

Therefore let us speak as we believe. Enemies are friends, and if they are not, then we are the enemy. Let friends be enemies if they choose: let them make up their minds for themselves without the distraction of glitz and furor.

Let us go about our vocation as determined as the hermit, as fastidious as the theologian, as just as the critic -- let us make his reputation so.